TEST
This is one of the most anticipated games of the end of the year, the one that fans will tear off for Christmas: Ghost Recon Breakpoint * , eleventh iteration of a license launched in 2001. The last game, Wildlands , s' had sold 15 million copies worldwide. The recipe has not changed: a mixture of war game and infiltration in which one embodies a soldier of special forces. It took two years and 1,000 people to Ubisoft, the flagship of the French video game, to give birth to the biggest project ever developed in Europe. Result: a spectacular game, well versed in the action and that has all the appearance of a "movie to play".
Special forces against special forces
The action of Ghost Recon Breakpoint takes place in 2025. Jace Skell, a guru of new technologies, settled on Auroa, a fictional island of the South Pacific, to found a utopian society. Except that the billionaire is quickly overflowed by the private security company he has appealed. Cole D. Walker, a deserter from the US Army in search of revenge, seizes the island with his "Wolves". To neutralize it, we send the "Ghosts", a special forces unit. Pistol in hand, knife in the boot and rations of survival in the backpack, it will have to get out of the chaos that reigns on Auroa.
At Ubisoft, we do not hide it: since Wildlands has relaunched the license in 2017, Ghost Recon must compete with the two giants of the war games that are Call of Duty and Battlefield . For this, the French giant is betting on his open world. Where the competition continues to offer multiple small pitches with predefined goals, Ubisoft parachutes the player to an island as vast as it is abundant, a playground that can be explored freely at any time. "Our promise is to put the player in the shoes of a special forces soldier, with a real focus on survival," said Europe 1 Nouredine Abboud, executive producer of the Ghost Recon game series. "The challenge was to create a very big, lively world and to add more authentic characters."
Did you know: why is the license called "Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon"?
"Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Breakpoint": this is the full name of Ubisoft's game. Literature buffs may have stammered, and for good reason: Tom Clancy was a very popular writer in the United States until his death in 2013. Mostly known for the red October thriller, the story of a submarine Russian who goes to the West during the Cold War, adapted into film with Sean Connery, Tom Clancy wrote twenty novels during his lifetime, all staging military or CIA, in a modern ultra-realistic and very technology.
What link to the video game will you tell me? Tom Clancy was very involved in the adaptations of his works. When these inspired video game creators, the writer was keen to keep a grip on the creative process. He has participated in the development of several licenses become cult, from Splinter Cell to Rainbow Six and Ghost Recon . After his death, Ubisoft recovered the rights of the Tom Clancy brand and continues today to use his name to extend the universe of Ghost Recon .
A game (too) abundant
In Ghost Recon Breakpoint , there are millions of things to do. In addition to the main story, you can do myriads of side missions to get info or weapons, accomplish challenges alone or in co-op with a friend, and even take a walk in the air to enjoy the universe. Breath the player, give him the choice, it was precisely the goal of Benoit Martinez, technical and artistic director of Ghost Recon Breakpoint . "The open world gives the player the freedom, the latitude to build his adventure, at his own pace.We do not have to be in the action all the time, we can also choose to lower the pressure", he explains to Europe 1.
© Ubisoft
Here we find the paw of Ubisoft, singer open worlds teeming with details, characters, secondary quests (even tertiary) and collectibles scattered in the four corners of the map. The recipe, well proven on Assassin's Creed and Watch Dogs , can distract beginners. A "Guided" mode can be directed directly to the objectives but Ghost Recon Breakpoint does not the less dizzy. Hard players will find their happiness but we regret overall that too many possibilities make lose the substance of the scenario of the game, certainly classic, but taking from end to end.
Ghost Recon Breakpoint stands out once in the heart of the action. It is quite possible to attack enemy bases with submachine guns. But let's say it right away: your chances of success are almost nil. Even if the artificial intelligence of the enemies is limited (this annoying tendency to see you then to forget you in a few seconds ...), their number and their equipment make you the task very difficult. It is better to think about the most appropriate tactics before starting each mission. Drone, sniper, night infiltration ... in Ghost Recon Breakpoint , you have to use discretion and strategy to succeed without dying ten times.
Like in the movies
The game is especially interesting by its very cinematic aspect. Everything makes you think of cinema in Ghost Recon Breakpoint : the very detailed decorations, the games of light, the action that one would think filmed camera with the shoulder ... And then, there is this scenario, very Hollywood and at the same time credible. And for good reason: to stick more closely to the infiltration missions of special forces, Ubisoft has appealed to a former member of US elite troops.
© Ubisoft
Emil Daubon, who works as a consultant for film and television, brought his experience to developers and writers to make the game even more authentic, down to the smallest detail. "I really helped make the movements of the soldiers look more realistic, they look human, they are details: how to handle a weapon, how to reload it, how to pass a gun to another ... It's more real, the characters really seem to feel the stress of a soldier deployed in combat zone, "he explains to Europe 1.
To give life to this desire for realism, Ubisoft has used real actors to play the scenes and dialogues, as in the cinema. We find in particular Jon Bernthal, who plays Cole Walker, the bad guy of Ghost Recon Breakpoint . This raw actor of formwork became known in Martin Scorsese's Le Loup de Wall Street and Denis Villeneuve's Sicario . But it was mostly on TV that he found his biggest roles, first in the series Walking Dead , then in the costume of the Punisher , very dark antihero Marvel, a soldier overtrained and betrayed by the army .
This time, Jon Bernthal is playing in a video game! He played the scenes in motion capture , with a combination of sensors to reproduce the movement of his lips in the game. "I did not know what to expect in this process, but I loved it. is like working on a good movie with a great director, you just have to do your job, "he said as part of the Ghost Recon Breakpoint promotion. "You have to go beyond the totally ridiculous costume and the fact that you are doing dialogues with someone who has sensors on your face, but I was surprised because I got used to it quickly." The video game is almost cinema!
* Ghost Recon Breakpoint, available since October 4 on Playstation 4, Xbox One and PC, 60 €.
Our opinion :
As the culmination of Ubisoft's French know-how in the open world, Ghost Recon Breakpoint impresses with its gargantuan content and perfect artistic direction. We are really entering the ranks of these special forces soldiers, without stopping on the alert and forced to prepare carefully the slightest operation. An ultra-realism that takes guts when it comes to survive in enemy territory. If fans of the genre will be filled by the wealth of Ghost Recon Breakpoint , neophytes will however find it difficult to find their mark in a complex world to grasp. As a cross-country run, the game requires some determination to overcome the first hours of trial and error and manage to take a real joystick in hand.